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Starting with Ubicomp: using the senseboard to introduce computing

Published: 29 February 2012 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a new undergraduate module for novice students conducted entirely through distance learning: My Digital Life (TU100). The module has been designed to lower the barriers to creating programs that interact with the world; TU100's materials have been designed to excite, encourage, reassure and support learners who explore the novel topic of ubiquitous computing through playful experimentation. It introduces the fundamentals of computing by giving students the capability for programming a device, the SenseBoard, which has built-in input/output and sensors. Programming is done in Sense, an extension of Scratch, which scaffolds programming and reduces the syntax burden. TU100 has taken inspiration from childhood learning and commercial product design to produce compelling, yet academically rigorous study materials.

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Cited By

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  • (2018)Empowering learners with tools in CS education: Physical computing in secondary schoolsit - Information Technology10.1515/itit-2017-003260:2(91-101)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2018
  • (2017)Teachers’ Expectations and Experience in Physical ComputingInformatics in Schools: Focus on Learning Programming10.1007/978-3-319-71483-7_5(49-61)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2017
  • (2014)I Scratch and Sense But Can I Program?International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education10.4018/ijicte.201407010710:3(87-116)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2014
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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
February 2012
734 pages
ISBN:9781450310987
DOI:10.1145/2157136
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 29 February 2012

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Author Tags

  1. computer science education
  2. distance education
  3. programming
  4. sense
  5. senseboard
  6. ubiquitous computing

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  • Research-article

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SIGCSE '12
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SIGCSE '12: The 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
February 29 - March 3, 2012
North Carolina, Raleigh, USA

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SIGCSE '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 100 of 289 submissions, 35%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 1,787 of 5,146 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Empowering learners with tools in CS education: Physical computing in secondary schoolsit - Information Technology10.1515/itit-2017-003260:2(91-101)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2018
  • (2017)Teachers’ Expectations and Experience in Physical ComputingInformatics in Schools: Focus on Learning Programming10.1007/978-3-319-71483-7_5(49-61)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2017
  • (2014)I Scratch and Sense But Can I Program?International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education10.4018/ijicte.201407010710:3(87-116)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2014
  • (2014)Never too oldProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2557184(3913-3922)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
  • (2013).NET gadgeteerProceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2445196.2445315(391-396)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2013
  • (2013)Supporting Computing and Technology distance learning students with developing argumentation skills2013 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EduCon.2013.6530115(258-267)Online publication date: Mar-2013
  • (2012)Challenge and creativityProceedings of the 7th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education10.1145/2481449.2481473(90-100)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2012
  • (2012)What next, ubicomp?Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing10.1145/2370216.2370222(31-40)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2012

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